Today's red post includes a look at how our latest duo, Xayah and Rakan, were created, Meddler with a set of quick gameplay thoughts for April 20th, a new edition of Ask Riot, a set of April champion and skin bundles, details on the upcoming Vision Score system, results from the 2017 MSI draw show, and more!

Quick Gameplay Thoughts: April 20

Mid-season work's going through it's final phases at the moment. We've got all the content on the PBE now from memory, though some of it still needs final balancing, bug fixing or asset polish still.

Rift Herald

Speaking of ongoing polish there's a lot currently going into the updated Rift Herald. As a heads up there'll likely also be a bit of further polish that comes in 7.10 as well. We've got some finishing touches that probably won't be ready for 7.9, so we'll be looking to get those in quickly after as a result.

Ivern

Unless anything significantly changes we'll be doing a balance pass on Ivern in 7.10. As mentioned previously 7.9 won't contain many individual champion balance changes, given both that the systemic changes will affect balance on most champs to some degree and that we're still very focused on finishing mid-season itself. We are starting to line up likely projects for the following patch however.

Starting Items for Passive Support Playstyles

One of the concerns we've seen expressed since we revealed the changes to the Ancient Coin line is that it's no longer a good option for a really passive playstyle. In terms of how you get rewards as a support that's very much intended, we want reward to be tied to action with a meaningful difference between good and poor choices, something old Coin didn't have. We certainly do want to ensure Coin feels like a good option on squishier ranged champs though, so will be tuning things like coin drop position and pick up radius to ensure trying to get them isn't suicide for non tanky champs. We'll also be watching champs like Soraka and Janna who often aren't great fits with Spellthief's to ensure they're not just left without a good starting item.

Non Gameplay Impacting: Feeney Art for Rakan and Xayah

A while back we put up a dev blog talking about Feeney art (light hearted temporary loading screen art for champions in development). More about it at the link below. Now that they're out we can also share the Feeney art for Rakan and Xayah for anyone interested, which was what we see loading into playtests for many months before the final splash art was done. As with the final splash art for duo the Feeney art was also made as one piece, then cut in half with that intent it would be shown side by side. That had the added little benefit of being a fun way to test that some code changes to ensure Xayah and Rakan were positioned appropriately on the loading screen worked as intended too.

i hope you do realise that according to LOLKING Lulu has close to 90% ban rate in master tier abovewhile having ~~50% ban rate in plat+why aren't you talking about her? it's been since 2 months her ban rate spiked while her win rate is highpeople are tired of playing against an overpowered championisn't the goal of league to balance the game and nerf overpowered champs? cause this logic doesn't seem to be applied to lulu, she's COMPLETLY INVISIBLE in your threadsher laning phase is TEN TIMES WORSE than malz, and malz gets nerfed firsti don't know how, as a support main, i literally don't know how to deal with a point and click 650 range nuke + empowered AAand so do all those people baning her

We'll probably be considering Lulu in 7.10 too, though that's not quite as certain as Ivern and she's more likely to be affected by the 7.9 changes.

Lulu's also an example of a champion with very different perceptions by region. Her ban rate's really high in NA and EU for example, while from memory nothing out of the ordinary in Korea or Brazil. That doesn't mean she does, or doesn't, need changes, but it's important to consider when assessing both balance and player stated frustration."

she's not receiving individual changes, but support starting items are getting overhauled, so she'll be affected as much as the other supports.

Yep. Support item changes will have at least some effect on champs bot lane in general. AD and defense item changes will also likely have at least some impact on different matchups, team comps etc. Think it's more likely than not we'll still want to look at Lulu, very possible though ecosystem changes mean we don't however."

It seems that the new Maokai is pretty underwhelming for some players, his main problems are: slow W, E doesn't do enough damage and his Ult is slow and worse compared to his old one.Any changes planned? Or is it too soon?

We'll be paying a lot of attention to all three tanks getting updated. We don't want to react too strongly to initial feedback about the kits on paper though, that's gone poorly for us in the past. If he does turn out to be ineffective we'll jump on that quickly, do want to distinguish between actual ineffectiveness and concern that some things look weaker however."

On Ivern and potential nerfs, Meddler commented on his ability to double buffs:

"Quote:

Meddler, about nerfing Ivern, have you guys considered removing the second buff when Ivern or an ally kills red or blue, I know it was made so Ivern can give buffs to others, but a team having an extra blue and red seems like an unintended strength (especially early game, where no buff would be given) , it can simply be changed in the buff just dropping and have the person who wants it to channel for a bit (where do we even see those animations anymore).

Doubling of buffs has been an intended strength on Ivern. It's not something extremely core to him certainly, so could be removed, at the same time though I suspect that wouldn't solve the cases we'll probably need to target (e.g. speed/ease of clear, invade power)."

When asked about Maokai's W speed on the PBE, Meddler explained it was bugged:

"Quote:

Rioter GreaterBelugaWhale said that Mao's W was bugged. Can you clarify what the bug is?

We've been testing a version of Maokai W that starts slow but accelerates quite rapidly as he travels. Still deciding whether we'll ship that or go back to the speed of 7.8 Maokai W. What's on PBE at present however is bugged in that it's the slow starting speed and no acceleration, leading to a bunch of non functional situations. Definitely won't be shipping that version."

It’s time for April bundles!

Throw Weapons Not Games Bundle - 50% off at 2096 RP (4105 RP if you need the champions)

Skins included:

Baker Pantheon

El León Gnar

Gladiator Draven

Rageborn Mundo

Glacial Olaf (Legacy)

Champions included:

Pantheon

Gnar

Draven

Dr. Mundo

Olaf

Enchanted Jungle Bundle - 50% off at 2584 RP (4777 RP if you need the champions)

Skins included:

Candy King Ivern

Pool Party Rek’Sai

Festive Maokai (Legacy)

Pumpkinhead Fiddlesticks (Legacy)

Special Weapon Zac

Champions included:

Ivern

Rek’Sai

Maokai

Fiddlesticks

Zac

Gauge And Engage Bundle - 50% off at 2699 RP (4546 RP if you need the champions)

Skins included:

Star Guardian Poppy

Bloodstone Lissandra

Surgeon Shen

AstroNautilus

Ironscale Shyvana

Champions included:

Poppy

Lissandra

Shen

Nautilus

Shyvana

Support And Escort Bundle - 50% off at 2472 RP (4169 RP if you need the champions)

Skins included:

Star Guardian Lulu

Armor of the Fifth Age Taric

Pool Party Leona

Program Soraka

Silent Night Sona (Legacy)

Champions included:

Lulu

Taric

Leona

Soraka

Sona"

Ask Riot: Snowdown Showdown and pro kills

This week's new Ask Riot is out, covering topics such as the Snowdown Showdown, low-kill pro games, and what Riot looks for in narrative writers:

"Welcome to Ask Riot!

Let’s talk Snowdown Showdown, worldbuilding writers, and pro kills. Oh and hey! Ask Riot’s one-year anniversary is fast approaching, and we’re going to celebrate by having Marc “Tryndamere” Merrill and Brandon “Ryze” Beck, aka the co-founders of Riot and co-creators of League, sit down and answer a bunch of them. If you’ve got a burning question for the guys who started this whole thing, ask away!

Any chance of the Snowdown Showdown (or any 1v1) mode returning in the future?

The 1v1 Snowdown Showdown game mode was a mode that just didn’t work out. The idea of it seemed fun, but it was spectacularly unpopular when we released it. Maybe there’s an execution of it that could be more compelling than version 1.0, but it would need to undergo some serious surgery, and that just doesn’t feel worth it when compared against making newer modes like Blood Moon.

This mode actually ended up working a lot better as a viewing experience for tournaments or esports events (like All-Stars). I feel like it will continue to have a home there (it’s also fun to watch pros battle it out 1v1!).

L4T3NCY

Lead Designer, Rotating Game Modes

For pro play, do you guys see low kill count games as a problem?

Ultimately, esports is a spectator sport. It has to be interesting to watch or folks will tune out. That doesn’t mean you should totally sacrifice strategy and good shot-calling in the name of bloodiness, but we all expect some amount of action.

It’s fine if the occasional game has low deaths, because that rarity makes it unusual and therefore interesting. But if low deaths become the norm and the audience is disengaged then we’ll almost certainly step in.

We strive for a balance, where the game is competitive and enjoyable for pros to play while also being awesome to watch and cheer along to.

GHOSTCRAWLER

Design Director, League of Legends

What does Riot look for in narrative and worldbuilding writers?

Four things I look for in a worldbuilding writer:

Detail-obsessed, but big picture minded. Worldbuilding writers need to be able to thread beautiful details through the story tapestry of the IP that still strengthens and feels natural to the larger design. The best writers I’ve worked with can dazzle with details, pulling me into the world so I feel like I’m seeing it with my own eyes, and then when I take a step back, I can see how those details play into a much larger story arc. This is especially important working in a fantasy genre because the details are really what brings an imaginary place to life and makes it feel real, so that when those larger story arcs play out, the impact is deep and resonant.

No writer is an island, when it comes to worldbuilding. Strong communication skills are key. When a writer dreams up a new name, place, event, character, etc, they discuss with their fellow worldbuilders to make sure their addition feels natural, makes sense logically, is unique, and enriches the story landscape. Being comfortable giving and receiving feedback is crucial. At the end of the day, we’re telling a collective story. This isn’t one person’s vision or brainchild. It’s many voices, styles, ideas and imaginations chiming together, so communicating early and often is key to creating a harmony.

Flexibility and versatility. Our universe is diverse and HUGE. That means our writers need to be able to flex lots of different muscles at different times, in order to keep balance amongst all the various champions and parts of the world. It’s okay to have a niche, but the strongest writers are able to hop from medium to medium, tone to tone, genre to genre, so we can tell the right stories at the right time.

Experience. Our team moves quickly and writers need to be able to hit the ground running, which makes professional experience invaluable. Whether your experience is in writing for games, movies, TV, comics, prose, etc — show us the kick-ass stuff you’ve written so we can see the unique flavor you’ll bring to League.

RIOT TIGER LILY

Editor, Worldbuilding Team

Have a question? Head over to Ask Riot and sign into your League account. Check out the Pro Tips, then ask away.

We promise to read every question, but we can’t guarantee they’ll all get answers. Some questions may already be answered elsewhere, and some won’t be right for Ask Riot.

This isn’t the best place to announce new features, for example, and we might skip conversations on issues we’ve talked about in depth before (though we can clarify individual points).

We are listening, though, so keep asking. We’ll make sure your questions are heard by the Rioters working on the stuff you’re curious about."

Vision Score Details

The TLDR: Vision Score is a loose measurement of vision game contribution, and can be ballparked as "about 1 point per minute of ward lifetime I'm responsible for providing/denying." It tends to be in the 5-150 range.

If you want more detailed info, here's more stuff to read below!

Vision Score Context

Participating in map vision is a powerful way to contribute to winning the game, but compared to many other types of contributions (like killing champions), there aren't very good tools to identify vision performance. You can check "Wards Placed," which is better than nothing, but as a lone data point, it's too isolated to paint a meaningful picture about how vision went in a game.

Vision Score is a new tool to help players in this effort. It's more complex and comprehensive than Wards Placed, incorporating temporary reveal effects and vision denied while also establishing some anti-cheese rules. The hope is that this score is a more meaningful, trustworthy number for players to analyze and compare performance.

It's important to note that Vision Score is not trying to be the last word on what good vision looks like. We felt that vision was such an ambiguous, indirect system that replacing player analysis with computer evaluation was not realistic or desirable. We're trying to keep it comprehensive enough to be meaningful but simple enough for interested players to break down and analyze. Vision Score is less trying to be Champ Mastery and more trying to be CS or Damage Dealt--it's a useful metric to evaluate performance, but nowhere near a "final score" on how well each player did.

So, this system focuses more on "how much are you contributing to vision in a way that's potentially useful?" and keeps "exactly how useful was it?" a more secondary question.

Vision Score System

The "scale" of the point system is "every point of Vision Score is about equal to one minute of ward lifetime in value." So if your vision score at the end of a game is 121, you can ballpark "my vision contribution this game was worth about 2 hours of ward lifetime." This number comes from three main sources:

Ward Lifetime Provided: Each minute of ward lifetime you provide by placing wards will give you 1 point (can give fractions of points). There are actually a lot of modifiers to this score, see "Ward Lifetime Provided Modifiers" below.

Ward Lifetime Denied: When you get a ward takedown (earned gold from a ward's death), you get 1 point for every minute of lifetime remaining on the ward (permanent wards are assumed to have 1.5 minutes of lifetime remaining).

Vision Mechanics: Various vision-providing mechanics have a baseline score on-use (usually 0.1 to 0.5), and can also give bonus scores if revealing unseen champions or epic monsters (usually 0.1 to 1.0). This includes Scryer's Bloom, trinket activation, ward placement, Scuttler Ward, Ashe Hawkshot, Kalista Sentinel, and Quinn Heightened Senses. A Hawkshot that reveals a full Baron attempt will give much more than a Quinn W that reveals nothing (which will still give some score).

A typical Vision Score can be single digits (short game where you're not using trinket well) to well over 100 (long game with consistent sightstone use). Generally, vision-focused junglers come out on top for shorter games, whereas Sightstone supports come out ahead on longer games.

Ward Lifetime Provided Modifiers

The rule of "my wards give me 1 point per minute they're alive" actually has a bunch of rules that can reduce the score. Each of these reduces the score multiplicatively: if two rules each reduce the point value by 50%, the resulting ward will give 0.25 points per minute, not 0 points. Modifiers only apply to the value from their actual duration: getting a -50% modifier for 6 seconds will translate to -0.05 points, not a -0.5 reduction from the entire minute.

Staleness: A ward that hasn't seen any interesting units (enemy champions, wards, and epic monsters) in a while will gradually go down in point value, starting at -0% at 60 seconds of staleness and worsening to -50% at 120 seconds of staleness.

Redundancy: While a ward is near other friendly sources of vision (allied wards, structures, and lane minions), its point value will be reduced, starting at -25% for 1 redundancy and worsening up to -75% for 3+ redundancies. Lane minions don't count as redundant if the ward is in brush.

Safety: A ward that's very close to your base can give less score, starting from -0% score around your buff camps and worsening to about -50% score at your base walls.

Pointlessness: A ward that's very close to a friendly structure or inside your own base will have a -100% modifier to its point value.

Baseline: If a ward is quickly killed by enemies, it will still give lifetime score as if it survived a minimum of 20 seconds (0.33 points).

This modifier system does make some compromises in the name of avoiding cheese while hopefully staying understandable. The goal here is to capture general contribution, not perfectly measure ward usefulness.

Closing

We're excited to start seeing utility contributions get some much-needed visibility. This is an early take on this particular facet of the game, and I'm sure both the mechanics and the presentation have more work to do.

Hopefully, Vision Score becomes a number that you can appreciate and analyze without it feeling too arbitrary. We'll be looking to iterate on it based on game results and feedback."

The first thing I thought was "It would be cool if I got bonus points every time my ward reveals an enemy champion", but I guess it's more or less factored into the "staleness" modifier?

Yeah we wanted to promote general trends, not specific game events. This is both to avoid cheese (only placing where I already suspect enemies are) and also because the value judgement on individual vision choices is so nuanced (a ward can be perfectly placed and utilized even if there's nothing there to spot). That said, the act of dropping a ward can still give you some score for revealing unseen champions (as mentioned in "Vision Mechanics" sub-bullet). We did this (in combination with the minimum ward lifetime) because reasonable wards are sometimes placed with the understanding that they'll spot something and die quickly, and that seemed like it shouldn't be heavily disincentivized in the system."

Good direction. I think vision awareness needs to be a thing to increase level of play at all levels.

I am sure this was in production before my suggestion.Also ADD team total vision score. This is important to promote the team aspect of the game and vision. If you are losing every game and have a lower team vision score, hopefully that can be a message to vision more, etc.Pointlessness: A ward that's very close to a friendly structure or inside your own base will have a -100% modifier to its point value.I get this. But what if I don't have red and bought Control to clear an enemy TP ward into our base.

Ya we started playtesting vision score in January. Posts like these are still useful though, any feedback for what you're working on can be a good data/discussion point.

I think if Vision Score ends up being a useful metric for people, we'll look to expand it further. Being able to find your score mid-game, seeing team score, or knowing your career score is sort of "next step" territory to explore.

Edit: In that particular case you'd get Ward Lifetime Denied points for the ward takedown. The Pointlessness modifier may deserve more some special casing based on the state of your actual base, though we haven't noticed it heavily influencing score or behavior in our playtests."

This vision score is cool and interactive. I like how it emphasizes the need for a support and encourages ADcough cough the rest of the team to place down some wards for once.

How is the other score for CC going to be calculated? Is it going to be based off of seconds you CC'd the enemy or what?

CC Score: Hard CC duration applied to enemy champions (in seconds), plus half value for most types of soft CC, plus 1/6 value for slows. You can score off multiple champions at once, and allies can overlap their CC with yours without reduction; but if you apply multiple simultaneous CC to a single target, it only chooses the highest scoring CC you have on them for score.

People with heavy teamfight CC or who have repeated lane CC tend to get top scores. DPS carries tend to have lowest scores."

When asked about getting points for using Nocturne's R as a vision denying ability, Riot GMangnoted:

"Quote:

Make it happen GMang! :)

Was able to whip that up pretty fast, should make it in!

Decided on Nocturne ult being worth 1.0, which translates to 3 points per minute of Nearsight applied to enemy champions."

Shouldn't the Safety modifier also depend on which turrets of yours are still standing?If you lost up to t2 turrets maybe the scoring should get better instead of staying worse cause you actually provide useful vision cause the enemy has access to your jungle?

Ya it's possible that it's overly harsh. In general, we were ok with "if your team is losing and in base, you will have a hard time getting a high vision score, because you will have a hard time having actual vision control over the map. Your score will still be high compared to your team, but the fact that your score is getting strangled is probably reflective of the reality of your game state." We might wanna reopen that discussion tho..."

I think the direction of having this additional metric is great. However, while it's good for helping players who want to improve, are you guys looking to find ways to encourage (or even reward) more warding/vision? This question is mostly for those auto filled supports who refuse to buy sightstone....Which is a very frustrating experience to deal with.

Making strategic contributions (and the support slot) feel more compelling and require less personal sacrifice is a big topic for us. I suspect it will take a long time until we're happy with it. I agree that buying Sightstone (and autofilling support in general) can be a big buzzkill, and things don't have to be that way. I don't have much to add atm other than what we're already showing for Midseason, but we are definitely thinking about that particular problem and consider it a high priority for LoL core gameplay. Vision Score barely scratches the surface imo."

Patch Chat with the Playtest Team - 7.8

"Hey, everyone! I'm Riot King Cobra and it's time for another round of Patch Chat! These threads serve as opportunity for us to talk about the patches that come out every two weeks. You can find the most recent patch by following this link: Patch 7.8 Notes.

I'm on Riot's Playtest Team, a group of high elo players who play with the new champions, reworks, balance tweaks, items, and map updates before they are released. It's our job to the test the changes that our designers come up with and ensure that we're introducing positive changes to League in terms of both balance and fun. Ask us questions - we'll try to answer as many as we can!

Patch 7.8 is largely a preparation patch for the upcoming midseason changes and features changes to some dominant picks such as Ivern, Nautilus, and Shen. There's also some changes for Karthus and Ryze aimed at helping players who are playing on higher latency. Udyr, Amumu, Lissandra, and Aatrox also got some attention in this patch. Additionally, this is the patch our new champions Rakan and Xayah debut!

All of us on the Playtest Team are avid gamers so feel free to talk to us as fellow LoL players!

"I've got a belated update on this—sorry for the confusion. So, the devs actually weren't happy with the quality of this feature and thought it best to pull it down until some major kinks could get worked out. Basically, there are longstanding very complicated problems that restrict our ability to pull accurate ratios on certain abilities directly from the game and publish them elsewhere.

These are systemic issues that affect anybody trying to pull ability info from League. Look at the ability description of Kog'Maw's W ability on OP.GG to see what it looks like. The game data system basically wasn't designed to feed certain info out accurately. So, as a result, when we implemented the ability ratios in the client, we discovered that 85% (rough guess) of the champs might actually be partially inaccurate. We just don't wanna give players bad information, so we'd rather hold the feature back for now until we can get it right.

Reminders

Last up, a few reminders on upcoming and ending soon promotions and sales!

As part of the Rakan and Xayah release we'll be having a DOUBLE IP WEEKEND starting Saturday morning and lasting through Monday morning (times vary by region!). Rakan and Xayah are also avvailable for IP gifting and two limited time icons can be obtained by gifting or playing as the pair through April 26thSee this post for more information!

As mentioned in the 7.8 notes, Legend of the Poro King returns to the RGMQ from 4/21/17 12:00 PT - 4/25/17 04:00 PT and 4/28/17 12:00 PT - 5/2/17 04:00 PT.